The internet has become one of the most plausible tools for business and income generation in the last two decades. Whether it is for news, sporting gear, weather, gadgets, online streaming or simply locating the nearest gym to your home, the internet is a fabric of daily life. With the change in time also, many businesses are choosing to launch their personal websites to either meet the demands of their clients or simply just to remain relevant in the sphere of things. Incidentally, you may be one of those persons. At present, you may have the right content, your perfect domain name and you are just waiting to press the gas pedal as the web hosting light goes green. One significant question you will need to have answered is “Which hosting service is right for me, VPS hosting or Dedicated hosting?”
Well, it’s time to relax, because we've got you covered. In this article we will look at 5 distinct differences between both, look at which may be right for you and then some. Where to start though? Let’s look at VPS hosting vs Dedicated hosting individually.
What exactly is VPS hosting?
Virtual Private Server or VPS is in a category by itself. In fact, it relates to webhosting because with VPS, customers are in their own virtual environment. VPS hosting allows many different websites to make use of the same sever but they get exclusive bandwidth and ram just for their virtual environment. No other website on the server will use this resource. Not even if there's a surge in traffic. This exclusion or isolation makes a VPS differ from shared hosting. With VPS, a hypervisor restricts that creates individual virtual machines on the server.
There is an even distribution of resources that makes it impossible for one particular website to encroach on another websites resources. This separation by the hypervisor provides security for each individual website on that server despite them using the same resources.
What is Dedicated Hosting?
Autonomy is the name of the game with Dedicated Server Hosting. This option allows customers to be fully in control of their hosting options and benefits. Dedicated Hosting is also the grand stage of hosting where customers have the advantage of having the host server for themselves.
Dedicated Hosting is mostly used by medium-sized and large companies. However, it is a viable option for individuals too. With Dedicated hosting, customers are given different physical server configurations or provided with the option of building a server with other specifications.
With VPS hosting vs Dedicated hosting, there are many differences. So, let’s look at the top 5 ways they differ.
1. VPS hosting vs Dedicated Hosting: Performance
Pertaining to any website service and particularly web hosting, performance is vitally important. Having a good performance will determine how fast your website loads and also how well your website runs for different users. With VPS hosting, you will get great loading speeds, however in the event that multiple websites are accessing the server (which is highly possible with VPS) then the increased traffic will cause your site to experience a slow performance.
On the other hand, with Dedicated hosting, users are given access to a larger pool of resources hence if there is a spike in traffic, the platform does not slow down the performance of your site. With Dedicated hosting, users are given a dedicated server.
WIN: Dedicated Hosting
2. VPS hosting vs Dedicated Hosting: Security
Another vital part of web hosting is Security. For both hosting platforms, a good level of security is provided for customers. However, which one gives a greater means of security is the important question.
VPS hosting provides very good security however, based on the shared element of the service, it is still susceptible to breaches. Not in the sense of a shared server, but there are risks to show VPS on a server, though they are often hidden.
With Dedicated hosting because your website is hosted on a dedicated server, your website is not at risk as a result of any breaches to other sites. For security then, it is clear that both provide great security features but, dedicated hosting has a greater level of protection.
WIN: Dedicated Hosting
3. Available Resources
Both VPS and Dedicated Hosting offer a wide array of resources for its customers. The difference appears within the amount of computing resources available to users. With VPS hosting, limitation exists where users get set resources on a shared server. Don't forget each VPS exists in isolation of the other. VPS hosting provides a shared server therefore a website does not actually get the full power of the entire server.
On the contrary, with Dedicated hosting, the resources allocated to users on a single dedicated server. So, whether you need all the resources available from the provider or just some, the resources will belong to you entirely. Naturally, customers will need to pay more for this benefit.
WIN: Dedicated Hosting
4. Customization and Configuration
This category may be the first both VPS and Dedicated hosting are the same. There are managed and unmanaged plans provided by VPS and Dedicated hosting services. Unmanaged plans grants you the ability to use different tools to add different customizations and configurations. Managed plans are more autonomous as customers’ tools will be built and maintained by the user.
Both VPS and Dedicated hosting allows there customers to customize their resource limits monthly. VPS hosting takes a slight advantage in this category in that if a user exceeds their monthly resource limit, they have the option to borrow from other sites easily.
WIN: VPS hosting
5. VPS and Dedicated Hosting Price
Most decisions rise and fall on money so inevitably, your decision when looking at VPS hosting vs Dedicated hosting may depend on how much money you intend to spend. As you may imagine, VPS hosting will be less expensive as with Dedicated hosting, there are many benefits and greater opportunities offered to host your website.
VPS hosting provides a great range of different prices that provide different hosting benefits and levels of resources. If you are looking to save money while experiencing a great hosting platform then VPS is the right choice.
WIN: VPS hosting
Take Away
Both VPS hosting and Dedicated hosting provide a wide variety of benefits and as outlined above, there are a few key benefits that set them apart. Your ultimate choice will depend on your area of need or perhaps pricing. If it is that you want dependence wherein you are a sole user on a dedicated server then having a Dedicated hosting service would be best. Additionally, with Dedicated hosting, your chances of having greater security is bolstered because your website will not be at risk as a result of other websites that share the same server.
With VPS hosting, you still get these great benefits, albeit on a shared server basis. A plus is that VPS hosting comes at an affordable cost. Another important consideration is the type of website you plan to host.
Hopefully having gone through the differences of VPS hosting vs Dedicated hosting, you are now able to distinguish between the two and determine which is best for you.
